You Want To Start An Online Business, So Treat It Like A Business - Part 3

It is time for the 3rd part of our 4 part series today. If you missed the first two parts or want to refer back you can do it here:

Part 1

Part 2

Today I want to discuss various marketing channels you can use in your online business.

Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are very popular on the internet, and are one of the easier ways to get involved in internet marketing.

By taking part in an affiliate program, you can get started with no capital outlay. You don’t need to keep any stock and you don’t have to be involved in shipping any products.

All you do is to make recommendations of products of other vendors, and you refer people to their websites. If any purchases are made, you earn a commission.

There are some great services available online to assist you. They will make life easier for you and keep you safe. These are services such as CLICKBANK and LINKSHARE to name but a few. These services provide centralized locations where you look at various affiliate programs from different vendors, and you can join the ones you prefer.

They provide you with affiliate links and “banner code” to place links and/or banners on your website for the program of your choice. When someone click on one of these links or banners, they will be redirected to the vendor’s website, and if a sale is made, the sale is tracked and you will be paid a commission.

Most of these services provide online reporting, to enable you to monitor your results.

Your Own Product / Online Store

It is also popular to create your own product to market on the internet. By doing this you can then build a team of affiliates to market your product, thus making use of leverage by duplicating your efforts through many people. In this case you can also list your product at the services mentioned under affiliate programs, such as CLICKBANK. This will enable affiliate marketers to register for your specific affiliate program.

Creating and /or running your own online store is another way of creating a great passive income, where people return for repeat business month after month. By doing this, you will not only be able to make money, but you will save lots of money, by just doing things you normally do.   The reason I say this, is that if you need to buy a product for everyday use, or a book you want to read, and you have an affiliate link of either Amazon.com or TripleClicks.com on your website, you would much rather now buy it from your “own store” than from someone else.

Network Marketing

In affiliate marketing you do not have any capital outlay, stock problems etc., but you are only relying on your own marketing efforts.  Creating your own product, you can use the power to leverage the efforts of many people to produce much better results, by recruiting affiliate marketers to market the product for you. Yet you will have to put in the effort to create a quality product in order to create any sales.

When joining a network marketing company online, you shouldn’t have any capital outlay. Yet you won’t be relying on only your own marketing efforts, seeing that you will be building a down line of other marketers as well. By teaching these people, and duplicating your efforts through them, you can also utilize the power to leverage their efforts to your advantage.

Yet, you would not have to create a new product, seeing that you will be marketing the product or the service of the networking company that you joined.  You would also not have to keep inventory, neither deal with shipping of any products, as this will be the responsibility of the company. 

You also should have the back-up and support of your sponsor, seeing that your success will also mean better success to him/her. And ultimately you should be enjoying a good support system from the company, providing training, marketing tools and customer service.

Go to Part 4 here.